The Guild of Merchant Explorers

The Game

This is a game about exploration. You start at the capital at the centre of the map, and you place explorer cubes extending from there to various parts of the map. There are different things to discover and to score points for. The interesting part is how your progress will reset at the end of every round. All your explorer cubes will be removed. To protect yourself from losing all progress, you need to establish outposts, so that in future rounds you can start exploring from these outposts as opposed to starting at the capital again. 

This is mostly a multiplayer solitaire game. It also feels like a roll and write game, despite having no rolling or writing involved. Everyone plays the same map, but you have your own board and you place cubes on your own board. The game comes with different maps so there are different scenarios you get to play with. Every turn, a card is revealed from the deck, and it tells you how you can place your explorers. You know the basic exploration deck, but every game there will be some random advanced cards added which help you explore in powerful ways. There are cards for each terrain type. Usually a card will tell you how many explorer cubes you can place, and on which terrain type. Since you know most of the deck, just not what order you will draw the cards, you can somewhat plan your exploration. 

When you explore, you establish an outpost by completely filling a region, i.e. a connected group of similar hexes. You place your outpost on one of these hexes, and it will stay there permanently. Some hexes have coins, and coins are your victory points. You score points by placing a cube on these hexes. Some hexes contain treasure chests. You draw a treasure card when you access these hexes. They give various benefits. This is a blind box gacha thing. Some hexes are trading posts. You need to connect two of them to score points, and the point value you score is their individual values multiplied. 

These purple buildings were my outposts (technically called villages). This was the start of a new round, so all the explorer cubes had been removed. However with outposts having been set up, I had many options. 

The game is played over four rounds. In the first round only one random advanced exploration card will be introduced. In the second round, this same card stays in the deck, so you know what it is just not when it will show up. A new advanced card will also be introduced, and you won't know what it is yet. In the third round, the previous two remain, and yet another new one is introduced. In the fourth round… You think I’m going to repeat the same thing right? Then you’re wrong. A new card will NOT be introduced in the fourth round. However one repeat card is added which lets you use one of the three previous advanced cards one more time. After four rounds are completed, the highest scorer wins. 

The Play

I learned the hard way about the need to plan for the future. A round ended much quicker than I expected and I hadn’t set up any outpost. The map is large, and you can’t try to do everything. You will probably need to focus on some areas and sacrifice others. This will somewhat depend on the advanced exploration cards that turn up in your game. It also depends on where you have set up your new bases for exploration, and the order the cards are drawn. 

It is fun to plan your adventure. You can’t make exact plans since you have no control over the order of the card deck. The advanced exploration cards always bring some excitement. They are the big breaks. Sometimes you make bets, hoping the cards turn up in a certain order. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you need to adjust plans. 

The Thoughts

The Guild of Merchant Explorers is a pleasant family game. It’s multiplayer solitaire for sure. Think of it as a solo game that you play together with friends to compare how well you do given the same conditions. The exploration is an interesting puzzle to solve. You decide how much risk you want to take. You try to grab opportunities that come your way.